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07:48 POLITICS

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Judge blocks release of Special Counsel's report on Trump

2025-01-07 21:31:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Judge blocks release of Special Counsel's report on Trump

Special Prosecutor Jack Smith

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith's report on his investigation into President-elect Donald Trump, while an appeals court considers a request by lawyers to keep it out.

Judge Aileen Cannon made the ruling Tuesday, following an urgent request by defense lawyers to bar the Justice Department from releasing the report — a step that Attorney Smith said could be made as early as Friday.

The case is being heard in the Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

Mr. Trump reacted by saying that "the report will be false, as were his investigations."

Special Counsel Smith said Tuesday that his team was finalizing the report on the two cases he investigated surrounding President-elect Donald Trump, and at least one of them could be released as early as Friday.

He made the statement in response to a request from Mr. Trump's lawyers, who had asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to preemptively block the report before it became public.

The report is expected to outline the findings that led to Attorney General Smith's indictment of two separate indictments, that of obtaining classified documents and sending them to Mr. Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, and the former president's efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election before the January 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol.

The classified documents case, in which Mr. Trump and two other defendants were charged, was dismissed in July by a judge who was appointed by Mr. Trump himself when he was president. The judge dismissed the case on the grounds that the appointment of Special Prosecutor Smith was made in violation of the law. Another indictment was filed against Mr. Trump, for interference in the election process, but the charges in the indictment were significantly limited after the Supreme Court's decision on the broad immunity enjoyed by presidents.

Attorney Smith's team decided to dismiss both cases in November after Mr. Trump's victory, citing an early Justice Department practice that says sitting presidents cannot be subject to impeachment. federal investigations.

Mr. Trump's defense attorneys, including attorney Todd Blanche, who has been nominated by him to serve as deputy attorney general in the new administration, appealed to current Attorney General Garland in a letter released in the hours late Monday to block the report's release and fire Attorney Smith "immediately" — or delegate the decision to release the report to the next attorney general.

In language similar to Mr. Trump's attacks on Attorney Smith and his work, Attorney Blanche wrote to Attorney Garland that "the release of a confidential report, prepared by a private citizen, that has gotten out of hand and, in violation of unconstitutional, removed as prosecutor would be an illegal political act intended to damage President Trump and justify the taxpayer money Mr. Smith unconstitutionally spent on his failed and now dismissed investigations".

In response to that request, Smith's team said on Tuesday that they would deliver their report to Prosecutor Garland in the afternoon and that the first part, which deals with investigations into classified documents, would not be made public until 10 p.m. on Friday morning. The expectation is that both parts of Attorney Smith's report will be released at the same time.

According to Department of Justice regulations, special prosecutors must submit a confidential report about the findings of their investigations to the Attorney General.

Attorney General Garland has so far released in full the reports prepared by special prosecutors who acted under his watch, including the report by prosecutor Robert Hur on investigations into secret documents from his time as vice president that were found on his premises private President Joe Biden, as well as prosecutor John Durhman's report on the FBI's investigations into Russian interference in the election.
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